The Rules

Be funny. You should be laughing audibly (lawling) as you write it. A few tricks to writing humor: list things in threes; use exaggeration, unexpected inversions and absurdity; and save the funniest notions for the end of the sentence or paragraph…testicular cancer!

Be edgy. But don’t go over the edge. We deal with risqué subjects, but try not to get gratuitously sick. You can be comical without being all “shitfuckshit.” (Heh heh.)

Be original. All content must be exclusive and original. We can’t use your content if it’s been published elsewhere. On that same token, don’t rip other people off. It will get you banned.

Be concise. You have a word limit; players have an attention span limit. Make every word count. When in doubt, cut it out.

Be rigorous. Edit yourself. Never be satisfied with the first draft. Proofread everything: once for grammar, spelling and punctuation; and again for cadence, clarity, inadvertent rhyming and awkward or repetitious words. Read it out loud if you have to. And be sure to preview your entry, especially if you’re using BBCode.

Be consistent. We have a house style (see below). Learn it well. If you’re unsure of something — or if you’re referencing something in-game — try looking it up in our wiki.

You can use BBCode for formatting. However, please stick to the text formatting options.

Respect copyright. Use original artwork or public domain sources when uploading images. Learn the difference between the various types of media licenses and use trustworthy resources for public domain images.

If you have further questions or you want examples of anything we’ve mentioned here, feel free to contact Jalapeno Bootyhole. He will be editing your entries mercilessly.

Forumwarz Style Guide

* Always insert a single space after a period, comma or any other punctuation mark. Double spaces? That’s amateur night.

* Always use ”double quotes.” You can use ‘single quotes’ only within a quotation.

* Use a long em dash with a space before and after — like this — to indicate pauses, not just a bunch of hyphens. Windows lets you accomplish this fantastical symbol by holding Alt + 0151 (on the numeric keypad).

* Ellipses are three periods long…no spaces. There’s also no need to capitalize the first letter after an ellipsis.

* Periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks. “Like this.”

* Hit return twice for a new paragraph. Indents? Not necessary.

* Since we’re going for a wide audience, use American spelling, unless you’re pretending to be a poxy Brit, a Canuck hoser or a filthy, ‘roo-shagging Aussie.

* After a colon, start with a capital letter if it’s a new sentence. Use lowercase if it’s a list or a sentence fragment. You may bend this rule for the sake of impact.

* When a quote starts a new sentence like this, “Make sure to cap the first letter.”

* Never hyphenate an adverb (i.e., newly created game). The exception is well-written game (but you can use reasonably well written game). See what we did there?

* We use compounds whenever possible. Topmost, heartrending, etc. This is especially true for technological vocab. When in doubt, Google that shit.

* We also like hyphens sometimes. Rear-view mirror, black-and-white photos. Use your discretion in other cases, such as “chocolate chip cookies,” which has no ambiguity and therefore probably no need for hyphenation.

* Generally, we don’t use the serial comma, unless before a new clause, as in: “Dogs, cats, and I also fuck monkeys.” For the sake of cadence, you may indeed flush this rule down the crapper.

* Emphasize words with italics (use sparingly and make sure not to italicize punctuation, except in special circumstances like long quotes). Avoid ALL CAPS, bold, underline or l33+ $p3@k, unless it fits the context.

* Numbers: Write out “one” through “nine.” You may say “one-tenth” if it works for you. If your sentence begins with a number, spell it out. Thousands are written as 1,000.

* Dates are written like Jan. 16, 2009, but you should say “in late January.” Note: It’s eighties, 1980s, ‘80s. You can see we used a single apostrophe before ”’80s.” We’re just that hardcore.